Civic groups settle lawsuit with Florida counties to require ballots in Spanish

civic engagement groups settled a 2018 class action lawsuit with 31 Florida counties on Monday that will require all Florida counties to make Spanishlanguage ballots, voting materials and a voter assistance hotline available in all elections for the next 10 years.

The settlement, filed Monday, is the conclusion of a years-long legal fight from voting rights organizations who alleged some Florida counties were not complying with Section

4(e) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when they failed to provide Spanishlanguage ballots to voters who had moved to Florida from Puerto Rico and were not fluent in English.

Attorneys for the plainlanguage tiffs argued that Florida counties that did not have Spanish-language materials were largely excluding Puerto Rican voters, who are U.S. citizens, thousands of whom relocated en masse to different parts of the Sunshine State after Hurricane Maria upended the lives of residents on the island in 2017.

“Until we brought this lawsuit, vast parts of Florida still ran English-only elections,” said Stuart Naifeh, senior attorney for the policy research firm Demos, one of the groups that sued the group of Florida counties. “The right to vote is an empty right if you can’t vote in a language you understand and we’re very pleased with the settlement that was reached in the last week.”

Among the other election requirements included in the settlement: SpanishLatino vote-by-mail ballots and request forms, Spanish-language secrecy envelopes and instructions, translation of election supervisors’ official websites and Spanish-language signs at supervisors’ offices.

During preliminary injunctions in the case, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee issued advisories to local supervisors of elections requiring Spanishlanguage ballots and assistance, including for the March 17, 2020, presidential preference primary.

While the settlement does not rule out future litigation if counties fail to comply, Lee has already addressed many of the organizations’ demands in a new state voting rule, which took effect on April 23. The new rule requires “statewide use of Spanish language ballots because the state’s Puerto Rican

American population has increased since the devastation of Hurricane Maria in September 2017,” according to the rule’s stated purpose.

Lee’s office did not immediately comment on the settlement.

The other groups involved in the suit against county supervisors of elections included Faith in Florida, Hispanic Federation, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, UnidosUS and Vamos4PR.

“This settlement sends a clear message that the Constitution and laws of this nation protect these American citizens, regardless of the language they speak,” said Yanidsi Velez, Florida and Southeast director of the Hispanic Federation, in a statement.

The lawsuit originally sued 32 Florida counties that were not providing

Spanish-language ballots, but Charlotte County was the only one that did not sign on to the final settlement. Charlotte’s supervisor of elections, Paul Stamoulis, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Miami Herald.

“We will keep an eye on Charlotte County,” Naifeh said.

Kira Romero-Craft, managing attorney for the Southeast office of LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the biggest hurdle now will be finding ways to let voters know that they have the right to request a Spanish-language ballot.

“We’ve been monitoring compliance and have determined that the counties are largely in compliance, and were largely willing to commit” to the settlement, Romero-Craft said. “One of the biggest challenges that we have is getting the word out to the affected communities.”

One of the lead plaintiffs, Marta Valentina Rivera Madera, is a 73-year-old resident of Alachua County. She left Puerto Rico after the 2017 storm and moved in with her daughter, who lives in Gainesville. Rivera Madera said most of her furniture and belongings were damaged in the storm, and because her residence had no electricity or running water at the time, she had no way to safely store her diabetes medicine.

“I’m really pleased with the decision with the lawsuit so that our ballots can be in Spanish,” Rivera Madera told reporters during a virtual press conference Monday afternoon. “We won’t need anyone to come with us to vote, we can do it ourselves without the help of anyone else.”

Rivera Madera said she likes where she lives and has been taking English classes online to “stay active.”

“Even though everything here is in English, you always have your Latina friends,” she said.